cams_rjboylan_b012_f003_009_1

If James comes by Water I wish you to have
good care taken of the mules for if they are gone
I shall have to buy another pair I would much rather
they would run than to be worked and abused overloaded
that would only spoil them for me just let them
run for not one man in twenty thinks a mule
can be led out to water without being first Knocked
down, they might do a great deal of work and
cross the plains if James takes care to them. I
rode a pair of three year old mules from Ilinois Illinois
to California and traveled forty miles the last
day. I expect the division fence between our farm
and Sawyer is in a horrid condition so that
it would not be prudent to have any Winter grain
sown -- but never mind I will have a division
fence when I get home -- but by all means Keep
up a good fenc [fence] around the orcherd [orchard]. cost what
it will you wrote about having rails made -- I
have reserved quite a number of them for building.
I fear they or some of them have been cut down try
to have them saved -- and have no more timber cut than
is actually needed it makes me nervous to think
of having some merciless axsman [axeman] go in to my
timber, I wish you to write to me regular direct
to Mariposa, Cal -- for nothing gives me such a
fever in anxiety as not to get letters from home
and if there should hapen [happen] to be a letter or two at
the close of our seperation [separation] that I should not get
never mind. I have seen the time I would cheerfuly [cheerfully]
have given ten dollars for onely [only] one I enclose four
from you but if James comes I shall, do nothing but
ask questions for one day.